Jerusalem.- A 13-year-old Palestinian boy opened fire in East Jerusalem on Saturday, wounding two people, Israeli medics said, less than a day after another assailant killed seven people outside a synagogue in the deadliest attack on record. city since 2008.
The shooting in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, in the eastern part of the city, near the historic Old City, injured a father and his son, ages 47 and 23, according to paramedics. Both were conscious and admitted to a hospital with a mild to serious condition, they added.
As police proceeded to the scene, two witnesses fired their service weapons and subdued the teen, police said, confiscating the weapon and taking him to the hospital for his injuries.
Video showed officers escorting the young man, clad only in his underwear, away from the scene and onto a gurney, his hands cuffed behind his back.
Authorities cordoned off the site of the attack and emergency vehicles and security forces surrounded the site while helicopters hovered overhead. “He waited to ambush civilians on the holy day of the sabbath,” Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne told The Associated Press, adding that the teenager shot a group of five civilians.
Security footage showed the victims were observant Jews, wearing kipas and tzitzits, or ritual knotted tassels.
Elsdunne described a “significant increase” in the level of activity of the Palestinian insurgency in recent days. The incidents on Saturday raised the possibility of confrontation even higher in one of the bloodiest months in Israel and the occupied West Bank in years.
On Friday, a Palestinian killed at least seven people, including a 70-year-old woman, in a Jewish settlement with a large ultra-Orthodox population in East Jerusalem.
The Palestinian attacks come after Israeli security forces killed at least seven people on Thursday in a raid that strained relations with the Palestinian Authority.
